Heatwave blasts western Europe

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Europe's hit wave is breaking records and disrupting business. It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service, IMBC at DeBio. We'll ask what extreme weather means for the economy and why one of Asia's biggest tech companies is heading to Wall Street despite a recent sell-off in technology stocks.
Tens of thousands of people have been left without power in Northern France as a blistering heat wave continues to grip much of Western Europe. The altitudes are being blamed on a transformer fault linked to the extreme temperatures. It comes after France recorded its hottest day on record on Tuesday, and red weather alerts remain in place across parts of France, Italy, Spain and Britain. Well, this people in London, though, had mixed views about the soaring temperatures.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:53)
I find it quite unbearable, and I think it is a sign of big climate change. And I just think that London is not a city that's meant to be hot.

**Hugh Schofield** (1:00)
The weather is really hot, but ultimately it's not good for a lot of people. There's lots of people living in homes which are overheating. They've got health problems.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:07)
I mean, I think we wait all year for some sun, so we should stop complaining, right?

**SPEAKER_1** (1:13)
And for some businesses, the heat wave is proving to be a boost. Emery runs an ice cream business in Gloucester in the west of England.

**Nick Beeke** (1:20)
A lot more people wanting to get ice creams. I mean, going around, like, almost every street, there's people coming in.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:26)
So yeah, it's just been good for money and stuff like that for the business.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:30)
And elsewhere, the heat is creating challenges from construction sites to transport networks and offices. I've been speaking to the BBC's Paris correspondent, Hugh Schofield, about the impact of the weather in France.

**Hugh Schofield** (1:43)
Millions of people are having to go to work and are suffering as a result. Getting to work is bad enough, but for many people, the workplace will be very, very tough as well in this heat. Officers will in generally have air conditioning, but factories, outside workers, tourist places, all this kind of activity is really badly hit by what's happening.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:04)
Yeah, let's talk more about the air conditioning because it's not very common practice in Europe to have air conditioners in buildings or in homes. Maybe offices do, but it's just generally not very common practice. So we've now seen a shift.

**Hugh Schofield** (2:18)
You're right, compared to America, compared to Asia, Japan, Europe is low on air conditioning, and in Europe, France is low on air conditioning. I mean, Spain and Italy, for example, hotter countries will have a far greater take up of air conditioning. In France, the take up in homes is something like 25%, and that will be mainly in the south. The reasons are, one, the country has not traditionally been the place where you need it. But the other reason is that there is a kind of institutional bias against air conditioning, very much influenced by the environmentalist movement, which has been anti-air conditioning, for the solid reason that putting in air conditioning is addressing the effects, but not the cause of climate change. And the government here has been against it too as a result. So all its plans for new build, renovation, have all been built based on new technologies, insulation, and so on, but really with the aim of actually ruling out air conditioning as an option in the future. But things happen so quickly that they're having to kind of junk that. And even the environmentalist movement is saying that air conditioning will have to be part of the solution, at least in the immediate term, because lives are at threat and air conditioning is going to have to be introduced in a kind of measured way.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:29)
What about the impact on tourism?

**Hugh Schofield** (3:31)
This is not good for tourism. This is not good for the economy because in weather like this, people are just too exhausted and they will stay in their air conditioned hotels or restaurants. Some museums do have air conditioning, therefore, places that people could take refuge in. But for example, the Louvre, no, they are actually reducing opening hours because a lot of the Louvre is overheating now in the afternoon. So there, they're shutting early. And the idea of going out to say Disneyland, Paris out in eastern suburbs, I mean, a lot of people who might have been planning that will say, no, it's just not something I want to do. I think the overall sort of figures for this week, when they come out for the tourist industry, as for lots of parts of industry, will be that it's been a slowdown.